I'm familiar with Symfony, etc. Please don't sell it to me as "perfectly nice" code.
The reason most of the PHP code is crap is not because PHP makes it impossible, but because a popular crap language with a low initial learning curve tends to attract a lot of crap programmers.
I'd actually say PHP has only gotten better over time, and every new release is better than the previous one. But you have a crap base (which PHP maintains religiously as not to break BC), and a crap community, and the software they write is crap. It's just what it is. The odd exception here and there.
You can overcome a horrible language, but that's not the problem (plus I'd argue PHP isn't the worst out there).
No, it's the crappy community around it. It's hard to overcome the horrible low quality PHP code libraries people write in PHP, because writing everything from scratch isn't practical in any language these days.
Composer is great and all (except for the lack of package signing, hey, who needs security, right?), but all Composer means you can install other people's PHP crap code more conveniently.
And while I wouldn't call the people behind Symfony "crap programmers", that framework is horribly overdesigned, slow, and comprised of an endless Inception of leaky abstractions.
It shows that a programmer can take all their experience and knowledge of design patterns, best practices and what not, and write a complete piece of turd.
Anyway I better run, because the modding of my posts here is showing I've angered the PHP fans.
Okay, I get where you are coming from. And I have to say that I agree with you on several of your points. But what I wanted to stress in my sort of "defence" of PHP is that, the fact is, lots of valid programmer use it, either for familiarity reasons, due to existing infrastructures or because they actually enjoy it (I do sometimes!). Complete rewrites are a mythical creature in the real world, so why not embrace, improve and push forward anything that tries to make PHP better in the future, instead of dismissing the whole technology as useless.
The reason most of the PHP code is crap is not because PHP makes it impossible, but because a popular crap language with a low initial learning curve tends to attract a lot of crap programmers.
I'd actually say PHP has only gotten better over time, and every new release is better than the previous one. But you have a crap base (which PHP maintains religiously as not to break BC), and a crap community, and the software they write is crap. It's just what it is. The odd exception here and there.
You can overcome a horrible language, but that's not the problem (plus I'd argue PHP isn't the worst out there).
No, it's the crappy community around it. It's hard to overcome the horrible low quality PHP code libraries people write in PHP, because writing everything from scratch isn't practical in any language these days.
Composer is great and all (except for the lack of package signing, hey, who needs security, right?), but all Composer means you can install other people's PHP crap code more conveniently.
And while I wouldn't call the people behind Symfony "crap programmers", that framework is horribly overdesigned, slow, and comprised of an endless Inception of leaky abstractions.
It shows that a programmer can take all their experience and knowledge of design patterns, best practices and what not, and write a complete piece of turd.
Anyway I better run, because the modding of my posts here is showing I've angered the PHP fans.